


Of Distant Dark Places

by Lilsciencequeen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Feels, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Framework Universe (Marvel), season five spec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-17 00:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12353466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsciencequeen/pseuds/Lilsciencequeen
Summary: “He took her,” Fitz whispered, his head in his hands, his voice so close to breaking, so close to tears. “He took her.”“Do you know where she is?” Hunter asked, sitting opposite the engineer, not really knowing what to do in this situation. He knew what Fitz was talking about, who he was talking about. Because of course he did. Was there anyone else that he could be talking about besides Jemma?// A Season Five Fic based on NYCC





	Of Distant Dark Places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stjarna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/gifts), [Monkeybum1723](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeybum1723/gifts).



> For Stjarna and Monkeybum1723 for helping inspire me to write this and talking NYCC to me.
> 
> This will contain minor spoilers from the NYCC in regards to what happened to the team.

“He took her,” Fitz whispered, his head in his hands, his voice so close to breaking, so close to tears. “He took her.”

“Do you know where she is?” Hunter asked, sitting opposite the engineer, not really knowing what to do in this situation. He knew what Fitz was talking about, _who_ he was talking about. Because of course he did. Was there anyone else that he could be talking about besides Jemma?

Fitz gave a heavy sigh and forced himself to look up. And he looked awful, Hunter not knowing why, not yet at least. The Scot had lost weight, his clothes hanging off his frame. Black bags made themselves known under his eyes and his cheekbones where sunken. “Space.” The one word from Fitz came almost as a bitter laugh. “He took her to fucking space.”

Hunter was taken back by this. “Space?” He knew that Fitz’s father was a horrible wicked man, even worse than his own father, and had been determined to separate them, keep them apart. Keep the team, Jemma, away from Fitz. But sending them to space… that had been somewhat unexpected. He had been expecting some remote location, deep in Antarctica, but space… that had never occurred to him, not in a million years.

Fitz nodded, rubbing at his face, as if even he were trying to come to terms with everything. “He has some space station. He took her, everyone else to it. Left me here so he could get to me. So he could use me.”

“Well,” Hunter said, trying to keep his voice hopeful, optimistic. “Let’s go get her.”

“How?” Fitz asked, eyes bleeding pain. “How are we supposed to get to her?”

Hunter licked his lips, not sure where he was going with this. “We can build something, work something out. You’re a rocket scientist after all.”

Unlike he normally would, Fitz didn’t correct Hunter, instead his express seemed to grow more sombre. As if something had happened that he wasn’t yet aware of. As if this were why Fitz had been so distant. “And my father?”

“We’ve defeated the bastard once before, we can do it again.” He paused, hoping that this would help Fitz. “And you’ve crossed the universe twice before for Jemma, what’s one more time?”

***

It was just under seventy hours later the two of them were holed up in some shady motel, and Fitz had, slowly, reluctantly opened up on the road. Telling Hunter all he had missed in the past year and a bit, ever since he and Bobbi had been disavowed. About how Lincoln had died, how he had helped another scientist develop androids, LMDs, and how they had taken over S.H.I.E.L.D., about the alternative reality they had been trapped in, what he had done in it.

How he and Jemma had taken the next step in their relationship.

Hunter had had to do some prompting to get Fitz to open up, saying that he couldn’t help if he didn’t know what was wrong.

And the first thing Hunter noticed about just how much of a dark place Fitz was in his mind, just how much he was hating himself, it all made sense now. Hunter could see what he was doing, how he blamed himself for everything that had happened. Hunter also knew why he was doing it, he knew what the engineer was like but he also didn’t blame Fitz. He _knew_ what the engineer was like, who he truly was.

But Fitz wasn’t listening to him. Hunter knew that it would take a while for him to recover, that it would take time. That even opening up this much had been hard for him. And he also knew that he wasn’t going to be the one who could talk to Fitz, that could make him believe that it was all going to be okay. That what had happened, what had been done, wasn’t his fault.

No, that would be Jemma.

Jemma. Hunter had always known that the two of them would end up together, and now it seemed, Fitz had given up on them. Deeming himself unworthy of Jemma.

But that wasn’t going to stop Hunter.

Never.

Not after all they had been through.

They deserved each other, they were made for each other. Two halves of a whole. Parts of an atom.

Two people who were destined to be together, who deserved each other.

It had been after three in the morning when they had gotten a room in the motel, they had dumped the car just over three miles away, not wanting to be caught and Fitz had crawled instantly into one of the beds, curling up in on himself, facing the wall.

Then, when Hunter thought he had fallen asleep, he spoke. A handful of simple words, but they were so deep, had so much meaning that they caused Hunter to almost shoot up in the bed in shock.

“I was going to propose to her.”

Hunter swallowed, not knowing what to say to this. He wasn’t well-versed in the marriage department but he had always known that those two loved each other, and marriage would have been inevitable, the end point.

“You were?” Hunter asked, those two words, that question being the only thing he could think of in that moment.

“I was…” A pause, a sigh. Then; “She’s not going to want to anymore. Marry me I mean. Why would she?”

And to that, Hunter had no reply, lost for words for once in his life.

***

“So how are we going to rescue them?” Hunter asked, looking at what limited supplies they had.  They had laid out the few pieces of tech they had managed to swipe from Alistair’s lab and the tool kit.

Fitz shrugged, not really thinking about what he could create. It was going to cause harm inevitably. It would get Jemma hurt most likely. It was going to be used for evil, like everything he created eventually was. He was cursed, unable to touch anything without poisoning it, without corrupting it. It was a miracle that he had been able to be with Jemma for so long without doing the same to her.

“What about her phone?” Hunter asked, realising that it was a stupid idea as he said it. There was no way that Fitz would be able to phone Jemma from Earth if she were trapped in space. There wasn’t even any guarantee that she had her phone, that it was in one piece. Trusting Alistair, he had probably destroyed it, but like the big mouth he was, Hunter couldn’t stop talking. “Did she have it in the diner?”

Fitz remained silent for a moment, taking in his friend’s words. He frowned, thinking things through. After leaving the Framework, it had all been a rush, a blur of moments where he couldn’t quite distinguish one thing from another. But Jemma should have had her phone on her, after Maveth, she never went anywhere without it. And eventually, after a number of moments, he spoke. “Yeah. She should have.”

Hunter nodded, thinking through what to do next. He knew that it was going to take time, that he was going to have to push Fitz to do this, as much as he hated that he would but it was the only thing that would rescue their friends. Their team.

Their family.

He knew that Fitz had suffered, had been hurt, had been abused and that was going to take time to recover from, and if he had his way (and he knew that Jemma would fully agree with him), he would recommend therapy to the engineer. But he also knew that Fitz would stop at nothing to get his team back, to save them. “Then can you contact her? Didn’t you add that thing to her phone once she came back from Maveth?”

A pause, a lull in the conversation, Fitz’s brilliant mind thinking through what had just been said. He _had_ added a new piece of tech to Jemma’s phone, way over two years ago now, after he had pulled her through the portal. She had asked for it, in the early days of her recovery, when she had been terrified something like that would happen again. She had asked him to make sure that they always had a way to communicate, no matter what. And after some effort, he had been able to succeed. But he hadn’t tested it when one of them hadn’t been on Earth.

He wasn’t even sure the tech would work but he had to know.

He had to.

So he reached forward for his phone, and picked it up, unlocking it with shaking hands. Then he opened up his contacts, selecting Jemma and his heart ached seeing the picture of her there, smiling at him, an ice cream sundae in front of her. It had been one of their first official dates, a day off where they had taken time to properly examine the area surrounding the base, the area they had hoped to make their home.

And it was also the day he told her he loved her for the first time.

Pushing those thoughts from his mind, memories of happier times that he didn’t deserve, he hit call. He was expecting the phone to say no signal, that he couldn’t contact her, that her phone was out of range but instead it rang, going straight to voicemail, her chirper sunshine tone filing his ears, only making his heart constrict more.

Once the voicemail message had ended, the tone ringing out, he hung up, dropping his phone onto the bed. Hunter looked at him expectantly from the other bed. “And…”

“Her phone’s still active,” Fitz replied, stunned. “It’s working.”

“Does that mean we can use it? Work out where she is?”

Fitz nodded, his mind already working on solving the problem, rocketing forward at a hundred million miles per hour, despite how much he tried to stop it. “We can.”

And over the next number of days, they did work on that, phoning Jemma’s phone again and again and again, trying to pin point exactly where she was in space. Fitz knew that it would be unreasonable. But he could use it to work out her general location, get in contact with her, and if she wanted, help her and the team to escape.

Of course, he and Hunter had had to move every so often, not wanting Alistair or any of his associates working out where they were. There were a lot of run down motels involved, most of which were somewhat shady.

And a lot of driving was involved.

A lot.

And it was in these moments that Fitz opened up, began to tell Hunter some of what was on his mind, what had been haunting him. And Hunter knew he had seen some horrible stuff in his life, had heard about some of the worst of humanity but what had been done to Fitz, what the engineer had been subjected to, it had made him sick to his very stomach.

Tears had been shed during the hours on the road, anger that had tried to be contained bubbled over the surface, flooding whatever car they had stolen. But in a way, Hunter was glad. Glad that Fitz was opening up about whatever was on his mind, even if it wasn’t good.

He had also shown Hunter the engagement ring, saying that he had taken it from his chest of drawers before they had had to flee the Playground. It was a thing of beauty, Hunter couldn’t deny that. It was two bands of silver, thin and delicate looking, one dotted with jewels that glittered in the dim light of the car. It was perfect, something that Jemma would just love. But Fitz had said he had only taken it because he couldn’t lose it.

Not because he was going to propose to her, because why would she want him? Someone who had caused so much pain, so much hurt and so much death. Someone who had almost put a bullet through her brain.

But Hunter told him not to lose hope, at least not yet anyway. That he shouldn’t give up without asking her what she thought, because her answer might surprise him.

***

It was another month before they got their communication device working, and they had left America, and were currently hiding in some hut in the Canadian wilderness.

Wires were trailing everywhere in the bedroom, and it took Hunter a lot of effort to cross the room that now resembled a snake pit without knocking anything out. Fitz was sitting on the bed, cross-legged, his attention focused on the screen. Hunter couldn’t see what was on it, but he had his suspicions.

That it was the connection to the space station, to Jemma.

He hadn’t called it yet, that much Hunter could tell. He seemed nervous, somewhat anxious. When he heard Hunter approaching, he looked up. “Can I?” he began asking, his voice shaking. “Can I do this alone? Please?”

And Hunter nodded, knowing that this was important to Fitz. That he do this along, that he discuss whatever it was that was needing discussed with Jemma. “I’ll be in the other room,” he said, before heading out, closing the door behind him.

And with that, Fitz was alone, and while he still had what little courage he had, he hit the call button. Moments later, the writing on the screen was replaced by a very confused looking Jemma.

“Fitz?” she asked, her face scrunching up in concern, her nose doing that adorable thing it always did when she saw him. “Is that you?”

He nodded, the edges of his lips curving up as he saw her. She was just as beautiful as she had been all those weeks ago now, but there was something different about her, a handful of tiny things that were different but he picked up on straight away. She was paler than she had been, as if she were unwell, as if she were terrified about something. There were heavy black bags hanging her eyes, showing that she hadn’t been sleeping properly. Things that didn’t surprise him. He knew that Jemma would be hurting, would be suffering like he was. But there was something else, something that made him feel just awful, his stomach twisting. Her eye was black and swollen, as if she had been hit there. And recently. It made him ill to his stomach that someone had hurt Jemma like that. “Yeah,” he eventually said. “Yeah, it’s me.”

Jemma returned his smile, her one beaming and brighter than a thousand stars. Then she a nervous glance over her shoulder as if she were nervous for something. “Let me do something,” she told him, reaching and grabbing something just out of shot and standing up. “I’ll be back in a second, okay?”

She walked across the room, and when she seemed to reach a door, she knelt down as if she were setting down the thing that she had picked up and then she hurried back to where she had been sitting, sliding back in to seat and grabbing a tablet, tapping it a number of times and then turning back to him. “That should give us some time.”

“That’s the Detector?” he asked, picking up now on what she had just done.

She nodded. “Yeah, the rooms, they’re soundproof. It means you can’t hear people when they’re coming in, when they’re coming to hu…” she trailed off, her voice becoming distant. “But Fitz, where are you?”

“Canada, the wilderness. My dad… he left me here on Earth, he wanted me and not you. Together at least.”

“Your father? He’s the one that did this?” Jemma asked, then she shook her head, chastising herself. “Oh Fitz, I’m so sorry, I should have known sooner. I should have worked it out”

“Nah,” he tried reassuring her, wanting her to know that it wasn’t her fault, it was his. “It’s my fault. Everything…”

“Fitz, please, I know we didn’t get a chance to talk after the Framework, before the diner, but I want you to know it’s not your fault, everything that you did, it wasn’t you. It was AIDA, the Darkhold. She forced you to become that, and I know that you’re going to need time to recover, that you’re going to blame yourself. I understand that, and I’m not going to lie, recovery is going to be hard. But it wasn’t you Fitz, okay. It wasn’t you. I don’t blame you for what happened, I still love you. I still want to be with you, our future, it’s not dead… I just… I just hate that I can’t be there with you, but please, Fitz, tell me that you’ve not alone, that you’ve found someone. Anyone.”

He took in her words, listening to what she was saying, and he was in two minds about it. He knew that she was right, that deep down, the Framework wasn’t his fault, that it was all down to the Darkhold, AIDA. But it was still him who pulled the trigger, who hurt all those people. Who killed all those people.

Who was going to kill Jemma.

“I’m not alone,” he told her, trying to reassure her, hoping that he could let her know that it was all going to be okay and wanting nothing more than to reach out, to be there for her physically, to hold her. To comfort her. He wanted to let her know that even though he was so many hundreds and thousands of miles away, he could be there for her. “I’m with Hunter.”

“Hunter?” Jemma asked, her tone a blend of relief and confusion.

He nodded. “He found me, was the one to get me away from my father and we’re working on something. We’re going to get you and the team.”

“Thank you,” Jemma whispered, her gaze flickering everywhere. She really did seem terrified, at whatever it was that his father had planned for her, at whatever he had her doing. “I just…” she seemed as though she were about to say something but then the tablet started buzzing, the Detector picking up someone heading towards the room where Jemma was. “I have to go,” she whispered, dropping her voice. “Please, Fitz, just stay safe.”

“I will.” He nodded and watched as she were just about to close the chat when something came to him, something he had to say, something that he couldn’t leave, not any longer. “And Jemma?” he asked, his voice nervous, stuttering slightly, hoping that he could catch her before she had to leave.

“Yes?”

“I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just so excited to see what happens in Season five. The first of December can't come quick enough! Thanks for checking out, I hope that you enjoyed!


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